The Pumpkin Patch
Reading Comprehension Activity
Tyler and Jacob are searching for the perfect pumpkin to carve for Halloween, but they have different ideas about what it should look like. Will they be able to agree? Students will read the story and answer follow-up questions about the language and the details.
Topic(s): Realistic Fiction. Skill(s): Summary, Context Clues, Story Elements. Genre(s): Prose
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One bright October morning, Tyler woke up and noticed that the sun was shining in her bedroom window. Everything seemed more colorful than usual. The sky was very blue, and the leaves on the big maple tree were turning yellow and red. “Jacob, wake up!” she called. “Fall is here!”
Jacob opened Tyler’s bedroom door and smiled. “I’m already up. Mom said we could go to the pumpkin patch today,” he said.
Jacob and Tyler got dressed and ate breakfast quickly. They were very excited to head to the pumpkin patch.
Once they got there, Tyler ran over to a big barrel that was full of tiny, orange pumpkins. Each one could fit in her hand. “Let’s get these!” she cried.
“No way,” Jacob said. “Those are much too small to carve into a good jack o’lantern.”
They kept walking into the pumpkin patch. They walked slowly so they wouldn’t trip on the vines or any of the bright orange pumpkins.
“What about this one?” Jacob asked. He reached down to pick up a pumpkin so enormous that he couldn’t even lift it off the ground.
Tyler laughed. “How would we get it in the car?”
They kept looking, but they could not agree on a the perfect pumpkin. There was always something not quite right. Sometimes the stem was too long, or the pumpkin had a flat side.
As they were about to give up and head home, Jacob tripped over a pumpkin. Tyler caught his arm before he fell to the ground. They looked at the pumpkin together. It was not too small or too large. It was perfectly round. It had a neat, brown stem that would make a good handle when they cut a cap out of the pumpkin and hollowed it out to hold a candle.
Tyler and Jacob didn’t say a word. They just smiled at each other and reached down to pick up the pumpkin. Together they carried it to the car and headed home. Now they were ready to carve their jack o’lantern for Halloween!
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